


i'm a mess but, i'm the mess that you wanted

by angelica_barnes



Category: Ed Sheeran (Musician), One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a sort of happy ending, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Multi, Taylor and Harry are twins in this universe don't ask it's just something i came up with forever ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 14:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14427771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: Taylor dies.Her friends and lover learn to live on without her.





	i'm a mess but, i'm the mess that you wanted

**Author's Note:**

> based off :
> 
> Hurts Like Hell - Fleurie  
> My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion  
> Amnesia - 5SOS  
> Bring Him Home - Les Mis  
> Goodbye - Avril Lavigne  
> Turning - Les Mis  
> It's Quiet Uptown - Hamilton

_ A dull ache that never goes away; that’s heartache. Press your hand against the glass of the fogged-up window; trace a heart with the smooth breath of your fingertips; fall apart at the seams, crumpling to the floor in a heap of crushed and broken dreams… _

_ A boulevard of love in ruins. _

***

 

There are butterflies scattered around her room. Dead and yet so alive, some of their wings flutter and some of them lie completely still, as if mannequins left in the dust of a storage closet. Just waiting for somebody to find them.

Well, Harry has.

His hands shake as he gently brushes his fingers across a blue creature’s wings, the soft feeling of decaying life and her curious cyan eyes; he drops to the floor. Too many memories are flooding through his mind, the dam he’d built so carefully crumbling into ashes that flow and mix with the water. Thoughts of  _ I don’t care  _ that stir themselves into  _ I loved her _ . And they’re not lies, but only the second one is true.

He doesn’t want to care. But sometimes it can’t be helped.

The butterfly flaps its wings, once, twice; it stills in death and Harry’s heart falls with it to the floor.

***

Taylor was something. Anything. Maybe even everything.

And now she’s nothing.

Harry can’t tell you where she is. He can’t tell you the exact location of her body. The ashes of the house she burned in, or maybe in the casket beneath so many feet of dirt, or perhaps the bottom of the ocean they swam in, or supposedly even the pebbles of the cliff’s bottom that they had to climb.

Nineteen years old. Way too young for death, but he came and took her anyway. Harry doesn’t know what to think, where to go, who to be.

He’s lost half of himself, and somehow, no matter how long he spends clawing at the stone with his hands, she won’t rise from the ground and erase her name off that tombstone in the cemetery.

***

Sometimes, when she -  _ they _ were younger, Harry would wake up with his arms around his sister, and he’d kiss the back of her neck and she’d wake up.

“Dreams feed the soul,” she would say. “So I’ve been dreaming.”

He told her, “I fell. Just down, down and down and down into empty blackness, with nothing and no one to grab onto but you.”

She’d linked their fingers together and pressed a super soft kiss to his lips. “I know. Me too.”

“I love you,” he’d say, “I love you my beautiful butterfly.”

And maybe she wasn’t just his sister. Maybe she was his soulmate. Maybe she still is.

But love like that never fades, does it?

(He doesn’t know.)

***

One last time, Harry kneels in the dirt. One last time, he cradles a butterfly the color of oceans in his hands; one last time, he feels a sad, wry smile cross his lips.

Deep, cyan eyes.

The butterfly drops to the ground, crushed from spindly fingers and strangled; its wings no longer flutter.

_ *** _

_ Too many days have passed without a smile - no, without her smile. Yes, it is something, isn’t it? So chilling, the way you can feel the wind and cold draping itself around you like a shadow; the world has set itself upon your shoulders, but you couldn’t care for anything but her gravestone. _

_ Her eyes are watching you. _

***

Taylor was something to all of them. A sister. A friend, once a lover, an enemy all at once and then not. But to Louis, she was his anchor. That tattoo’s for her, his one and only grounding point. And she would come over whenever he and Harry had a fight; she’d let him vent too, and then she’d kiss his head and bid him goodbye to comfort her brother.

But she loved him. And he clutched at his chest, clawing for the piece of it that belonged to her.

(He couldn’t find it.)

***

Sometimes, when the rain came down especially hard, the boys would run outside into it. Even if there was thunder, and Louis would join Taylor in jumping in the puddles. They were deep in the Vermont home’s driveway, and since they had no shame, the boys and her would fall into the ponds of rainwater in nothing but their pj’s and sometimes, start making out with one another.

Taylor would laugh and lean back into Harry and Louis and the rest of them, they’d all trade stories until the sun came out and blinded them.

But nothing, Louis realizes now, was as bright as Taylor’s smile.

***

And there are times that Louis remembers, back before… now, that Taylor and Louis would go out together, just them. And they’d shop at the most random places - Target, Hollister, Kohl’s and others, even a Market Basket with the others once, just anywhere that wasn’t expected. “Gotta keep up appearances,” Taylor would say, faking a Southern accent. “Can’t be predictable.”

She would hold all the boys’ hands - Harry first, Harry last, Zayn for an hour in between and Liam on the way to the resturants, and Niall on the way out, and Louis would get to grasp her fingers on the car ride over. They’d whisper about things and exchange kisses in the most random places, like ears and cheeks and nose tips, but his favorite was always kissing her hand. Her palm. Her fingers.

“I miss you,” he’d say on their time of each phone call, and she would laugh and he could just see her, shaking her head as she popped popcorn into her mouth.

“And I reckon I’ll be down there soon,” she said, and he chuckled.

“New York’s below Jericho, Tay,” and she would just giggle and tell him to pass the phone to Zayn.

***

Louis creeps into Harry’s room - he’s the last. Harry’s asleep, with Zayn and Niall and Liam piled on top of him; Zayn in Liam’s arms, of course. Zayn’s head pokes up as Louis shuts the door quietly, “So you came too, huh? Couldn’t deal?”

He nods, and Zayn smiles sadly, wistfully. “Liam talks in his sleep, y’know.” His gaze shifts to Liam and he fingers his lover’s hair lightly. “Talks about her. All the time.”

He pauses again and Louis steps closer, and then suddenly he’s close enough to touch Liam’s hand and rub his thumb over the back of it, softly.

“Things like, ‘I miss you’,” Zayn murmurs, “and ‘please come back’. Breaks my heart.”

He outstretches a hand and Louis takes it, and Zayn hauls him up onto the bed. Louis snuggles up in between Harry and Zayn, trying to get warm and comfortable and to feel slightly less like there’s a person missing.

“Broke her heart too, that’s why she left,” Zayn whispers, eyelids drooping shut. Louis just stares at Harry’s curls, tangled in his fingers, and watches his lips move a little bit with each breath, each snore.

“Sometimes I think it’s our fault,” Zayn breathes. And then he’s asleep and Louis confesses to empty air, “Sometimes I think it’s mine.”

***

Liam used to sleep by the door. It made him feel better, for some reason. Was probably in more danger of being murdered, but that wasn’t likely. Well, too likely.

Zayn would find him there way late at night or way early in the morning, depending on how you wanted to look at it. He learned pretty quickly not to try and wake Liam, or move him - Liam would just whimper and whine, talk even more or even worse, he’d start to beg and push Zayn away. Sometimes he’d even scream and cry, and that was when Zayn’s heart broke in half and he simply sunk to the floor beside Liam, enveloping him in his arms and holding on tight.

“I’m worried about you,” Zayn said, whispered, more like, and Liam just smiled sweet and sad and small and murmured, “I’m fine.”

Zayn hated those words. Liam could see it in the way he would scowl and turn away. Wring his fingers, curl them into a fist. Grit his teeth. Unbeknownst to him, Liam hated it to, but to admit it would be weak.

And he had to be the strong one.

Falling apart was weak. His daddy always told him boys don’t cry.

***

His room is a mess. Clothes everywhere in strewn piles, spilled drinks and empty whiskey bottles. “Bad for your health, Li,” Zayn would say, if he dropped by. “You know you can’t drink like this, love.”

Zayn. And his eyeliner and mascara, thrown against the wall and rubbed in. Poems and diary entries and Taylor’s songs.

He doesn’t mean to mention her, is the thing. All he does is try to remember the tiniest sliver of the beautiful, wonderful person she was, but sometimes he wants to forget.

“Mostly,” he tells Zayn, and Zayn asks what.

“To forget,” Liam says. “Mostly, I want.”

***

The day he finds the photographs, he cries. Zayn rushes in, Louis tumbling in and Harry tripping over his long legs; Niall falls down the stairs. They land at his feet in a crumpled heap, and Liam manages to giggle softly. There’s a raspy tint to it that’s new; then again, the bags under eyes and tear stains are also new.

“Just found these,” he whispers. God, he can’t even speak now. Zayn struggles to sit up and weaves their fingers together, leaning into Liam’s side. He takes the picture from his lover’s hands, and the other three look over his shoulder.

“She’s,” Harry starts quietly, and then begins again, “she was so beautiful.” He reaches forward and his fingers dance over Taylor’s frozen face.

“We keep this love in a photograph,” Niall sings roughly, and Louis turns and buries his face in the blonde boy’s neck. They all wraps their arms around each other and let the tears fall.

***

They sleep restlessly now. Liam resumes his place by the door - this time, Zayn goes with him. There’s a pile of blankets and crushed pillows on the carpet just right of and under the doorknob, so the others can come in if needed. Liam looks out the window, tapping his fingers against the armrest absentmindedly. He hears soft snores and the sound of glass falling and breaking, and he turns his head to see the shattered pieces of Taylor’s old mug on the floor. Harry’s fingers reaching down towards it.

Luckily, her brother doesn’t wake up. He sleeps on, and Liam pushes himself up and carefully picks up each shard. The thick white pieces don’t stand out much against his paling skin, and for a moment he wonders if this is what Taylor’s skin looks like now she’s a corpse. He shakes himself from the thought a moment later and hates himself just a tiny bit more.

He presses his foot down on the lever that opens the trashcan and holds the glass over it, ready to part his hands and make sure one of his boys doesn’t cut himself walking through their own living room…

He can’t. Liam closes the trashcan with a sigh and gently places the pieces in an old jewelry box. One he found in the attic, that Harry and Taylor used to use to hold their gems when playing dress-up.

He gives it to Harry for Christmas, and Harry breaks down in their arms.

***

Liam’s never been lower. Quite literally. There’s a cave in the backyard, and it goes deeper into the ground the farther you go. He sings softly as he walks, tripping every once in awhile, and eventually he finds what he’s been looking for - the space clears out suddenly, lightbulbs strung around and plugged in to a portable box. There are dusty cushions and tattered blankets, and open books on top of piles of stuffies and boxes of expired tea, and jugs of water.

He takes the boys down there the next day, and they all pack a few days’ worth of clothing like he asks, and Zayn presses himself into Liam’s side in an awkward hug when he shows them.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “Thanks for all of us, you’ve just saved us from hitting rock bottom again, Li.” Liam nods and kisses Zayn, only for a moment, and Niall’s already collapsed on the pillows in the corner and Harry is crying and Louis is kissing him through it, running his fingers through Harry’s unkept curls.

He falls asleep in Louis’ arms shortly after, and Liam pulls out his laptop and they all watch  _ Love Actually _ \- it was Taylor and Harry’s favorite movie.

Liam’s not sure how Harry feels about it now. (It still is.)

***

And to close up winter, they all go to visit her grave. It’s simple, like she wanted, and says,  _ Beloved sister, lover, and friend _ . Engraved beneath are lyrics from her favorite of her songs,  _ And why I’ve spent my whole life trying to put it into words _ .

Now, they have no words for this. For the gaping holes in their hearts, or that piece of mind they’ve cut off so the memories don’t come flooding through. Too roughly, too quickly.

“I miss her,” Harry admits quietly, hunched over in Louis’ arms, and Zayn nods. Niall’s numb.

“We all miss her,” Liam whispers, but they all know they only feel an equivalent of his pain.

Because they’re missing her like a person with dementia may miss their memories, but Harry, Harry  _ bleeds _ .

***

Zayn prays, mostly. It’s usually silent. In his head. Often when the others are trying to distract themselves and the rain is pouring down and Liam is blank against his side.

It’s exhausting. Being alive without her - he doesn’t know how Harry fares. It’s impossible for him to imagine, having the person you love most in the world snatched away so suddenly. It’s not like it was a long time coming; she was one of the youngest of any of them. Only Harry, by two minutes, was lesser-aged than her.

Nineteen was far too soon.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to Harry, when the boy is finally sleeping, and Louis looks up at him, away from Harry’s face. He holds Harry’s hand in both of his, rubbing his thumb gently across the back of it.

“You don’t think we’ll lose him too, do you?” Louis asks, more afraid than he’d usually care to admit, and Zayn’s lips twitch into a small, sad smile.

“No,” he answers, softly, truthfully. “He’s lost close to everything, but not you. Not us.”

Louis looks back down at his lover, and lies down beside him as if Romeo and Juliet on their deathbed.

Zayn brushes his knuckles lightly across Harry’s cheek, in a gentle caress. “He won’t lose us.”

***

It’s been awhile since any of them has left their home. They’ve been outside, sure, but never farther than the woods just beyond the fences. Nobody’s guarding their house this time - even the media hasn’t been able to follow them. Of course they’re all over Taylor’s death though. Disrespectful articles and overstepping boundaries of privacy and holding insensitive interviews and most of all, issuing insincere apologies and well-wishes.

They may as well just call it quits; One Direction’s been on hiatus too long. The world’s forgotten about them, and Zayn prefers it that way. All too often they’ve found themselves unable to run away, to cry alone. Everyone deserves that luxury, he thinks.

He wonders what they’re doing back in Manhattan; Ed’s probably writing tons of songs and pouring his heart and soul out into lyrics and ink and scraps of paper and -

Oh, god.

Ed.

***

“Guys,” he says, bursting through the doorway, and they all turn to look at him. Except for Harry, and Niall, who are asleep, hunched over in each other’s arms. “What about Ed? Has anyone called him?”

And suddenly Louis is shaking Harry and Niall awake and whispering to them and Liam is in the front hall, grabbing their coats and then they’re in the car, piled on top of one another and Louis drives, fast and steady, and soon they’re running down the hall to Ed’s high-up Manhattan apartment.

“Hey, Ed?” Zayn says softly, knocking on the door, and there’s no answer. Oh well, they tried to be polite. Louis breaks the lock and they barge in; their keys slipped their minds.

Ed’s on the floor. Surrounded by sheets and sheets of music, and notebook after notebook open to a page not yet crammed with pencil marks, just almost, and guitars and keyboards are scattered around the room. Half the things are wet, with tears they must be, because Ed’s got tear stains and bags under his eyes just like them. But his are black, not just purple, and suddenly it hits Zayn that they’ve at least had each other; Ed’s been braving this alone.

“We’re sorry,” he whispers, slowly walking forward and kneeling down, enveloping Ed in his arms. “I’m sorry.”

Ed begins to cry, softer than the rest of them; he might be weeping. The others slowly make their way over; for once, Harry finds himself comforting instead of being comforted, and his big hands and long fingers comb through Ed’s disheveled ginger curls gently.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn murmurs, tears welling up and spilling over as he cradles Ed’s head and they rock him back in forth. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

***

Normally, they’d stay with him, but they think it might be asking for suicide if they let Ed stay holed up here for one more minute, so Louis and Liam haul him to the car while Harry, Niall and Zayn dig through his room and pack him clothes and notebooks and pencils and on the way out, Zayn grabs Ed’s favorite guitar that Harry points out.

The car ride home to Jericho is silent.

“We’re sorry,” Zayn repeats quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” Ed shakes his head, staring out the window. Niall holds his hand, a simple gesture of comfort. Liam’s eyes keep flicking to them from the passenger’s seat, constantly appearing worriedly in the rearview mirror.

“I would’ve been fine,” Ed mumbles. “There was expired food in the fridge and I’d turned off the water. The electricity too. There were pills in the bathroom cabinet and today I was gonna close the blinds and bar the door.”

They know what he’s implying. Zayn gasps and the tears start up again; Harry holds him and cries himself. Niall grasps Ed tighter, holding him close, and Liam looks down at his hands.

Louis stares straight ahead at the road, but Zayn knows he’s on the brink of swerving off.

That if it weren’t for them, he would.

***

Zayn doesn’t sleep that night. Instead, he wanders the house. He checks on them all, one by one.

Liam’s asleep in their bed, snoring almost inaudibly. The covers are pulled up to his chin, an old sheep stuffie Taylor gave him cuddled in his arms. As Zayn rises, Liam whimpers, and so Zayn presses a kiss to his lover’s hair before crawling out of bed and shuffling down the hall and down the stairs.

Niall’s asleep in Louis and Harry’s bed. It makes sense; he never liked to sleep alone. Maybe they could make that the permanent arrangement. Louis and him are tangled together, and there’s a dent in the bed and a bundle of tossed sheets where Harry usually is.

Zayn finds him in the living room. Sleeping on top of Ed’s thin sheet that covers him. They’re facing each other, hands clasped together, as if they’d just been talking when they dozed off. Knowing them, that was probably it.

Zayn walks over to the rocking chair and picks up the handsewn quilt that Niall and Taylor made together, a long time ago. At sixteen. Funny how Niall’s never shown an interest in the art again.

He covers Harry with it, carefully and lightly as so not to wake him, and then he kisses Harry’s curls and Ed’s temple quickly. He does his best to avoid the squeaky floorboards and walks on his tiptoes, returning to his and Liam’s bed.

“Love you,” he whispers, kissing Liam’s lips in a soft peck, and Liam hums.

“Love you too,” he mumbles, and Zayn squeezes his eyes shut to block the tears, pulls his baby close, and holds on tight.

***

Contrary to what they think, Niall remembers the quilt. He remembers making it. Laughing and hot cocoa and kisses on cheeks. He remembers first trusting her, first loving her.

He nearly faints when he wakes up to see Harry wrapped up in it on the mattress next to Ed. He wants to faint. Maybe then he’ll wake up, and this’ll all be a dream.

A nightmare, more specifically.

“Mornin’,” he tells an already awake Liam, who hums and pours him some tea.

“Not a good one,” the latter boy replies. “Foggy and it’s raining. We’ll probably get thunder later.”

Niall just nods numbly. He stirs his spoon around in his tea, not thinking much of it until it becomes too fast of a whirlpool and spills, splattering all over the counter.

“Shit!” He shouts, and Liam just picks up some dish towels and starts wiping up the mess. Louis walks in at the same time as Zayn, both rubbing their eyes and yawning. Louis’ hair sticks up all over.

“What’s,” yawn, “going on?”

“I just spilled something,” Niall mumbles. “It doesn’t matter.”

They accept the answer, though still seeing it as more than he’s saying. Louis comes over and wraps his arms around his friend, resting his head on Niall’s shoulder. Zayn puts a hand on Liam’s arm and Liam turns his head; they peck each other lightly on the mouth and then Zayn starts to help clean up.

Harry and Ed don’t wake for another good twenty minutes, not until Niall starts crying.

***

He calms down awhile later, after they give him some crackers and some water. Zayn stays beside him, rubbing his back, and Louis holds his hand from his other side. Harry stares off into space from the rocking chair, lost in thought; Ed studies his hands and plays with his fingers while Liam’s eyes nervously snapped from one boy to the next.

It’s silent. Tense. Unbearable.

Like the funeral.

***

“Maybe I only need you,” Niall whispers, wishfully. Zayn looks down at him, pulling Niall closer and fingering the split ends of his hair. “Maybe I’ve only ever needed you and the boys. And Ed. Yeah. Maybe I never needed her.”

Zayn smiles sadly and shakes his head. “You always needed her, Ni. We all did.”

Niall sighs. “I know.” He pushes himself away and trudges back to his room; the door slams, but softer than usual. Zayn flinches and Harry comes up from behind, taking Zayn’s hand.

“She was the closest thing he had to a sister,” he murmurs. “We’re all as close as brothers or lovers, but Taylor was our sister. Only mine by blood.”

“Blood is thicker than water,” Zayn rasps; funny enough, he’s thirsty. He hasn’t been coping either, not very well; he hasn’t eaten in days. Liam’s so lost in his head he hasn’t noticed, even though he was the first was Zayn’s anorexia had first become a problem.

Harry nods and his spindly fingers poke Zayn’s side, jabbing him in the ribs. Zayn gasps, “Ahh!”

Harry offers a half-hearted smirking smile. He touches Zayn’s face, “You need to eat.”

Niall peeks out from behind the bedroom door, and Harry turns and spares him a gentle smile, holding out his hand. “So do you.”

***

“How do you deal, Hazza?” Niall asks quietly, staring down at his cereal. Harry looks up from his hands, twisted together on the table, and smiles sadly.

He shrugs, but Niall knows there’s more to it.

Ed comes in awhile later, rubbing his eyes and yawning and he stumbles, landing hard on the chair left of Niall. Liam looks up from where he stands cutting veggies in the kitchen, and comes over to sit next to Zayn and take his hand under the table. Louis is already there, having dozed off with his head on Harry’s shoulder a bit ago.

“I don’t,” Harry finally whispers, and they all look up. Louis sleeps on. “That’s how I deal, Niall, I don’t.”

Niall has nothing to say to that. So he reaches over and takes Harry’s hand. He squeezes.

Harry smiles weakly and squeezes back.

***

Ed writes songs.

Shit, that was a dumb way to start it. Everybody knows that. Let’s begin again -

Ed writes songs and songs and songs and then some more songs and pretty much all of them are about Taylor. The most recent ones are sad. Gut-wrenching.

Heartbreaking.

I mean, if your heart breaks, you may as well ask the world to share your pain, right? Take a little bit of it off your shoulders?

Ed asks the boys if he can stay, and he looks at his sneaker toes and fidgets with his fingers and his voice, it’s soft and timid but Harry draws him into a tight hug and Ed swears, he can feel tears dripping onto his shirt and pressing against his neck.

He hugs back anyway.

He moves into the spare-ish bedroom and paints the walls grey and white in uneven lines and x’s, and then he picks up a piece of charcoal and scratches out some lyrics.

By the time he’s done, there are no more white and grey spots and the floor is covered in dust and Zayn is crying and Liam is speechless and Niall is numb and there are nineteen less charcoal pencils in his collection.

One for each year Taylor lived.

***

“Will you stay, please?” Niall whispers, squeaks, more like. Ed smiles, another soft and sad one like always, and walks over to the bed. He sits down and wraps his arms around Niall, offering a kiss or two on the forehead and squeezing his fingers around his friend’s bicep comfortingly.

“Course,” he murmurs. “I won’t leave you alone while the spouses enjoy themselves.”

Niall giggles wetly, holding on as tightly to Ed as the ginger-haired man is to him, and says, “Zaynie and Li aren’t married yet.” His voice cracks on the last word and Ed chuckles, deep rumbling sound.

“Yeah,  _ yet _ ,” he says. “They will be.”

Niall hums and nods, then buries his face in the crook of Ed’s neck. A few minutes later they’re both close to dozing off, and then Niall whispers, “Just like you and her should’ve been.”

And Ed’s eyes snap open and the tears well up, but he only shifts his hold on Niall and doesn’t let go. He won’t let go.

“Yeah.”

***

The next day is quieter than most. (Most are silent.) Liam reads with a hand in Zayn’s hair, who sits leaning against Liam’s legs. Zayn draws, probably something random as usual; he uses charcoal like Ed. Niall is curled up next to the fire, watching a movie on the TV on mute, and Louis is just listening to music through headphones and staring out the window, combing his fingers through Harry’s hair as the younger sleeps, leaning on him.

Ed writes. Just little lyrics, a few notes here and there, and there’s plenty of paper to go around. He strums every once in awhile on his guitar, muttering a few words under his breath, but mostly he scribbles. Zayn keeps glancing up at him.

“I finished,” Zayn finally whispers, and Louis takes out his head phones as they all turn to look. Normally they’d wake Harry, but they know he hasn’t been sleeping, just wandering around at night, so they don’t this time. Zayn takes a deep breath and turns the sketchpad, so they can see.

It’s a black and white drawing of Ed and Taylor. Ed’s sitting in a chair and Taylor’s on his lap, head bent back as she laughs. Ed is grinning, his mouth open as he talks and his hands making motions. Taylor’s only wearing a t-shirt and some underwear, and her hair’s tied back in a messy ponytail. Ed’s guitar rests on the chair next to them and the sun shines, just a few clouds showing through the window.

Ed looks down, getting choked up, and Zayn bites his lip, turning it back to face him. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I just saw you and thought of her. That day when we snuck up on you. I’m sorry.” He looks down and there’s a tear running down his cheek. Liam kneels down next to him and pulls Zayn into his arms; Zayn buries his face in his lover’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Ed rasps, and Ed’s head snaps up. Louis turns and rests his head on a sleeping Harry’s chest, his fingers travelling up towards the heart. Just to make sure it’s still beating. “No, I want it. Please.”

Zayn nods and rips the paper out. The sound of it shredding is all too loud in the room, but then Ed takes it with shaking fingers and with a breath that causes his chest to shudder, he presses his lips to sketched-Taylor’s face and a tear drops on the paper, and he cradles it to his chest.

“Thank you,” his whispers, voice hoarse, and Zayn nods, unable to speak. Niall comes over and leans his head on Ed’s back as he wraps his arms around the singer. “Thank you so much.”

Zayn swallows thickly. “Anytime,” he manages, choking on his own unshed tears. “Anytime.”

***

Ed stays with them for two more days before packing his bags and running out to the car in the rain. He was soaked, but the drawing was dry, tucked in his inside coat pocket. The headlights on the car were off, and he closed the trunk with a  _ thud! _ and turned around to see Louis Tomlinson watching him.

He jumped. “God, don’t scare me like that -”

“Why’re you leaving?”

Ed stops for a moment. He opens his mouth. He closes it. He lifts his shoulders and drops them and lets out a loud sigh, and then he lets his arms fall limply to his sides.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know I needed a reason.”

Louis nods. Quickly, aggressively. “Of course you do. You can’t leave Harry here. Or Zayn. Liam, Niall.”

He pauses for a moment, then picks up again real quiet. “Me.”

Ed looks away. “I can’t be surrounded by things that make me think of her.”

Louis smiles. It’s melancholy, but real. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and scuffs the toes of his slippers into the driveway ground. “Yeah. Well, you don’t wanna forget her, do you?”

Ed shakes his head. Louis’ lips quirk up into a tiny, good ol’ days smirk.

“Come on in,” he says, nodding towards the door, and so Ed reluctantly grabs his bag out of the car and trudges after him.

***

She kinda saw it coming, if she’s being honest. There’s been someone coming for her for years; Taylor just let the shadow take her that night. It was calming, the blanket of blackness that death draped over her eyes. Her heart slowed, and she was okay - alive, even.

It’d been trying to hard to beat, to stay for them. For him and for them and for Harry.

First, she watches over Ed. She roams his apartment for awhile, the one that would’ve been theirs in a few months if she’d lived. It’s just as messy as she remembers it, but Ed is so much down deeper in that hole he’s been digging himself into. Papers and pencils and guitars and instruments, and Taylor can see his eyes. Dark, hooded, those of a man who’s lost himself.

“I’m sorry things changed,” she whispers, touching his shoulder, and then she touches her necklace, and closes her eyes. “But you’ve gotta live for me. It’s what I want for you.”

Harry comes with the boys, and they take the love of her life and help him leave her behind.

She waves goodbye. “I love you.”

***

Niall is one of the things she misses the most. He was such a sweetie, and so sunshiney, and sure, he was shy, but she was shy too. He and her could cling to each other in the corner, the wallflowers. Until Ed came and whisked her away, but that was something far off and uncommon - he preferred quiet and unguarded, which didn’t come with parties.

But she and Niall loved the alcohol, and so she and him might’ve shared a few drunken kisses that didn’t mean anything and that they blushed over and forget about later. That morning, when hungover. And they would fall asleep together and they’d comb through each other’s hair with their fingers gently, to wake up the other slowly.

Now, she watches him. And he falls apart, but it’s in her lover’s arms and her brother’s too, and so she merely kisses his forehead and lets one tear fall. “Goodbye.”

***

She doesn’t know how to tell Zayn. She can’t really talk, you see. She can’t move anything, obviously. She can’t touch him, you know. He’ll break.

Zayn has a habit of staying up too late. He’ll be working on something, or staring out the window, or taking a walk. He won’t notice when it’s gone from orange to blue to black, because his brain is just wired to look internally. He’s only ever seen what he thinks, what he feels. What others think and emote.

He works like clockwork. Up at four am, doesn’t eat until nine (when the others do) even if his stomach’s grumbling, then he locks himself up in his studio for six hours. At three, he emerges, and goes to the living room, settling himself next to Liam for two and a half hours to have real conversations with real, breathing, living people, and then they have dinner and he stares out the window for thirty minutes and twenty seconds and then he leaves for a walk. He comes back at eleven, and then he sits on the porch and draws in the moonlight and faint lantern glow for a hour or two, and then he goes inside and checks on them all. After that, he lies down next to Liam and kisses his lips in a quick goodnight. It takes fifty minutes of thinking and wandering aimlessly around his mind before he manages to shut off and fall into blackness. Up in one to two hours.

Taylor wishes she could help Zayn. But Liam does that, and Harry, and Louis and Niall and Ed and she knows they’ll take care of him for her. So she kisses Zayn on the temple, where he’s fallen asleep over his work for the millionth time.

“I can’t come home,” she murmurs. “But promise me you will.”

She links her pinky around his, and miraculously, his eyes open for a second and he squeezes back, and then he drops back asleep and she lets out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

***

Liam is goodness. Pure and angelic, and he takes care of the others like Zayn - parents, those two. She follows them around - makes sure that Zayn sleeps at least two hours each night, and that Liam still kisses Zayn enough to calm his darling’s insecurities.

She spends some time with him in the darkness. Whenever Zayn goes to check on the others, she checks on Liam. She holds him and weaves their fingers together, for comfort. And he never really says it, but she knows he misses her perhaps some of the most. If there’s one thing Liam’s always had trouble with, it’s sharing his pain. Allowing some of his burdens to fall on others’ shoulders, so he can have a rest.

He can’t hold the sky up all the time; Atlas was a god. Liam isn’t. He overestimates his own abilities. And it’ll kill him one day, but not anytime soon. Not on her watch, anyway.

“Don’t forget me,” she whispers as Zayn reappears and she leaves. “I’ll remember you. Don’t cry.”

Liam cries. But she’s gone.

***

To Louis, she leaves a letter. It’s simple, just some doodles and some lyrics she wrote to him once upon a time, and he smiles sadly. The others crowd around him to read it over his shoulder, and a few of them get choked up. Louis blinks back tears but grins, and then Zayn murmurs, “Do you think she’s happy?”

They’re quiet for a moment and then Liam nods, “Yes. I think she is.” Harry laughs wetly and nuzzles his nose into Liam’s hair, wringing an arm around his shoulder.

“I think so too.”

Taylor smiles and doesn’t come down from where she sits criss-cross on the ceiling, but she touches the tip of her index finger to Louis’ nose. “You’ll go on. With my brother, I know it, and I’ll be here with you. Right in here.”

And she presses her hand flat against Louis’ chest, right over his heart. She could swear she hears him gasp.

His hearts beats on.

***

Harry is the hardest to say goodbye to.

He calls her phone one night, which they keep buried in the garden under some lilies and azaleas and chrysanthemums and roses. She touches the ground and answers.

“Hello?”

“I just wanted to say,” Harry rasps, voice cracking, “that even though you’re gone, I love you. I still sometimes think you’re here, like I’ll turn the corner and run into you accidentally or they’ll call your names at the Grammys and you’ll drag me up with you or I’ll wake up with your hair in my mouth and you on top of me or… or…”

She’s silent.

“And I  _ miss _ you,” Harry sobs into the phone, and she can picture his face crumbling and him squeezing his eyes shut to keep in the millions of tears already cascading down his cheeks. “I miss you so much.”

She opens her mouth and then pauses. She hears him take in a shuddery breath, and she smiles shakily.

“I know,” Taylor whispers, her own silent crying playing out like a scene from a sad movie’s ending scene. “I loved and lost you too, little brother. My baby. My flower. My Hazza.”

She curls her fingers around the nearest flower and rips it up, tearing it from its roots roughly in one yank. She stands and turns her head, craning her neck to look up at Harry’s window, she she can see the light is out. He’s gone.

Just like she was, once upon a time.

“My life.”

***

Taylor had a pretty good life. It was short, no doubt, but full of love and blooming with happiness. She couldn’t ask for anything more, she thinks, other than for her boys to smile.

And maybe one day they will.

But for now, she lets them grieve.

She lets them mourn her.

And around her, she sees people smiling! She sees them laughing, and talking, and healing! And Niall meets a girl when they go grocery shopping, with green eyes and dark hair, and he looks at her! And Liam and Zayn meet each other’s eyes and they link their fingers and they chuckle! And Louis and Harry dance in the early morning in the garden and it’s simple but beautiful!

And Ed smiles!

They all smile!

And it’s a…

It’s a wonderful, crazy world, isn’t it?

Even without her.

***

Taylor sits on a city rooftop, the one of Ed’s apartment building, and she hooks her arms around one leg and lets the other hang over the side. She stares up at the moon and the stars and the oranges and pinks beginning to blossom behind them, and she smiles gently.

“Don’t you fret,” she sings, as soft as a whisper or a feather, “my dear, darlings. I don’t feel any pain. A little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now. I’m here, that’s all you need to know! And I will keep you safe, like you have kept me warm, and rain, will make the flowers, grow…”

And oh, how she misses them. And oh, how she longs to see their smiles shine without tears.

And oh, how she wishes it didn’t take time.

But it does. And they’ll be alright.

And so she turns towards the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Dancing With Our Hands Tied" by Taylor Swift


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